The Deliverance Of Terror
by Ashram The Tragic Knight
Summary: Enter the mind of the most evil of entities...Debonair. From her thoughts and ambitions to the dark manipulation of Nova, this is the story of how the end nearly began. Rated for possible brief nudity and violent battle scenes in later chapters. (Takes pl
1. Prologue

  
  


Prologue

  
  


The Pillar has since perished. The pain has been great for many. The fight 

has been long. Many have suffered. Many have sacrificed their lives.

  
  


The Magic Knights themselves, slaying the one they had expected to save, shed their own

tears before departure back to their world.

  
  


Now, as if also mourning, the Land of the Will has been slowly tearing itself apart, reducing itself to eventual nothingness, unsupported by a Pillar's voice.

  
  


The Pillar system itself, however, is unaware of this, and patiently waits. It does not hear the screams of the weeping or know of the souls of the ones who have passed on fighting for their beliefs.

  
  


It waits...

  
  


Other places have also heard of this sudden drastic change in Cephiro, and have come with their own wishes and technology to claim the Pillar for themselves. Thus, times are chaotic.

  
  


Little has anyone known now that there is something beyond their sight, yet has been with them all along throughout this time of agony. 

  
  


It is a presence that has yet to reveal itself, yet has been within many since the universe was born. 

  
  


Something that can give one great power, great sorrow, or great pain. 

  
  


Hate. Despair. Disbelief. This only _feeds _it.

  
  


It...._She_..has not only been waiting....but growing....and preparing.

  
  


_Feeding...living once again._

  
  


Beyond the normal dimensions of Cephiro, a being with great power has been biding her time...and is finally ready to emerge.

  
  


Her arrival shall cause great grief not only to Cephiro, but to any worlds or beings she comes across. This is her main purpose for manifesting herself and giving herself life.

  
  


Her name...is _Debonair_.

  
  


A time of intense pain and loss is coming.

  
  


And her time is now.....

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Mirrors Of Black Glass

  
  


_"Evil is not an abstract concept. It lives. It has a form. It stalks. It is too real."_

  
  


_~Dr. Tom Dooley_

  
  


Chapter 1: Mirrors Of Black Glass

  
  


How beings preferred the light over dark, she could never possibly understand. 

  
  


She could always think better in the dark. She also found it much more peaceful. 

  
  


Light, in her opinion, always scattered things apart, ruined the serenity of it all, intruded where it shouldn't. Darkness was always just simply there and quiet, never changing and always at rest. 

  
  


_Except when the light treads where it shouldn't belong, _she thought silently to herself, as she smirked softly. _Then the dark will move at full force, as a great gale to wipe away the opposition and smash it into pieces...and once again, the silence falls. So why must all beings rely on light? Why do they not simply embrace the dark; in reality it is the more peaceful, cleansing, and enlightening path..._

  
  


She clicked her fingernails against her obsidian throne as she shifted in the shadows, listening to the soft rains outside of her great castle that seemed to travel with her wherever she went. It was always her only true home, the only place she ever needed to plan her conquests. This alternate dimension was a rather suitable place for it, causing it to be hidden from those whom she plotted against. Once again she smiled, reveling at her own efficiency, and that of the Castle Debonair.

  
  


She had noticed, once, that her own castle was in fact a twisted version of the great crystal one at the center of this world, dubbed Cephiro, that she wished to eliminate. Perhaps it was a good omen, showing that it would not take long for it to topple and for her own wishes to replace it. 

  
  


Even if it was not, it didn't matter. It would eventually crumble along with the earth that supported it. The one called Princess Emeraude, who had chosen to fall along with the soul she had loved, her own High Priest, had been slain by the ones known as the Magic Knights. This had caused what this Land of the Will called the Pillar System to fail, since it had no one to control it. 

  
  


What attracted Debonair to this Pillar System most was its efficiency, a trait about things that she intensely appreciated. After all, inefficient things deserved to be destroyed. Its power was, supposedly, to grant the every wish of its wielder, which meant that perhaps even the mighty task of changing and reshaping a single world-perhaps even an entire dimension, or the universe itself-would be almost as easy as uttering a few simple words. 

  
  


Unfortunate to most, not unlike other technology and strange artifacts, the Pillar was like a double-edged sword. Since the user-which had been Emeraude-strayed from the tasks of using the Pillar to pray for the stability of Cephiro, disasters began to unfold, and the Magic Knights were brought into the middle of the crisis to end her suffering and prevent worldwide destruction. Hence, the Pillar began to slowly tear the world apart.

  
  


She was not entirely sure that it was quite that powerful in reality; however, there was no way she could not have noticed the last dying breath of the Princess, and the surge of awesome power that had coursed through that crown-the Pillar's true and fitting form-that she wore. It had been too much to ignore. 

  
  


Of course, what amused her most was what had taken place before the Pillar became...inactive, so to speak. There were two things; one of which was that feeling called "love" that the Princess had shared with the High Priest, the one known as Zagato. The foolish man had even tried to stray the Knights from their shadowed goal of assassinating his lover, sending deadly creatures and all his loyal servants against them. Yet he still failed all the way to his very end, even when he challenged them with his own war machine-a Rune God, it was called, she believed.

  
  


Love, it seemed, was the leading cause of death in every known world she had encountered-more damaging than war, plague, or starvation. It caused some beings to die inside before their physical forms were truly dead, and it could happen many more times than just once. This caused her to abruptly laugh out loud.

  
  


It was a stupid and weak emotion, love; it rarely got beings anywhere, and it pleased her when it caused them more grief than happiness. Some of them couldn't even seem to stand very long without it. Besides, love never stayed with anyone forever, as far as she knew; it always seemed to die at the same time the physical body faded away. However, unbeknownst to most beings, power could always stay with their souls, and always did. So did darkness, of course. The lot of them were simply too feeble minded and materialistic to figure out how to unlock their secrets.

  
  


The other thing was the fact that the Magic Knights had not known the Princess' undying wish, the wish that sealed her fate, and theirs as well. They naturally assumed that they were to _save _her, not to end her existence. Even though they had finally returned to their world, they were suffering, and their hearts and minds rolled in turmoil, especially stressful since they were still so tender and young.

  
  


She grinned lasciviously at that. _Assumption...one of the more delicious traits that plague most intelligent beings, and one of the great many things that can cause them to lose sight of their lives._

  
  


_Emeraude threw her life and soul and that wonderfully versatile crown away for another through assumption...how humorous! I can just see her lost and wandering for that strange man that was equally ridiculous. How could she have even really known what he truly felt? Not love, but perhaps inferiority? That could have been the only reason he treated her so well. How can beings like her possibly know what is and is not this feeling called "love" in the first place? She didn't think it over, and now she is useless nothingness. She would have been so entertaining to manipulate...like a pretty little puppet. Bringing her soul to me would be too time consuming, and would probably not be worth the effort. Perhaps after this world falls, I could consider doing that..I currently have more important things to plan._

  
  


Done with her reflecting for the time being, she decided it was time to do a bit of wandering herself; not quite as useless, but wandering nonetheless. __

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
